In computer science, a debugger or debugging tool is a computer program that is used to test and debug other programs. The code to be examined might alternatively be running on an instruction set simulator (ISS), a technique that allows great power in its ability to halt when specific conditions are encountered, but which will typically be somewhat slower than executing the code directly on the appropriate (or the same) processor.
Embedded software is computer software, written to control and/or monitor machines or devices that are not typically thought of as computers. Embedded software can be specialized for a particular type of hardware on which the embedded software runs and has time and memory constraints. In some examples, the term embedded software is used interchangeably with the term firmware. In some examples, embedded software may be the only software on a system, and in other examples, the embedded software may execute on top of other software (e.g., an operating system).